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mr wilson,
have you discussed your recommendations with the guys at iz3d? they are very receptive to constructive criticism, and are always working to improve. i got one of their monitors last year, and though it isnt perfect, i enjoyed playing neverwinter nights 2 and star wars battlefront 2. they are extremely engaged with users on the forums though, and work very hard.
i would love to see their system improved, and think using 120hz monitors to alternately display the different polarizations would solve a great deal of the issues. Reply

"The iZ3D monitor has the capability of polarizing light at any angle, and the glasses they use have the right lens set at 45 degrees and the left lens set at 135 degrees. It is up to the iZ3D driver to display the rendered image for the right eye and the rendered image for the left eye, and then use their polarizing LCD panel to determine how much of each pixel from the back screen either eye is supposed to see. If a pixel should be visible to the right eye, the front panel polarizes it to 45 degrees, if it should be visible to the left eye, 135 degrees. If it should be visible to both equally, the light is polarized to 90 degrees."

That's all well and good, but doesn't it mean that the entire effect is going to break down if you tilt your head to one side? Reply

At the same time, since it didn't actually work well enough in most cases to be usable, tilting your head wasn't even something to worry about. This is a problem with any 3D based on linearly polarized light anyway.

Circular polarization doesn't have the same problem, but I'm not sure how they would be able to do the partial filtering with circular polarization ... Reply

Okay first off I am going to clean up this mess that Anandtech is making of the iZ3D. I am a personal owner of this monitor and I love it. As a 2D monitor it works just fine and is on par with most other LCD monitors. Now granted I would love to see this monitor in action @ 120hz which is a future plan for iZ3D's 26" model. Now lets get to the "crosstalk" issue. Apparently Anandtech lacks the ability to fully understand how polarization works. The crosstalk a.k.a ghosting is caused by the polarization correct. But it's not because of the LCD panel lacking 120hz or anything like that. It's because each color of light has a wavelength associated to it. Red, blue, green.. blah blah.. Because of the different wavelengths some light cannot be fully polarized to the proper angle which is a large cause of the crosstalk. THATS WHERE THE PARTIAL polarization that was mentioned is coming from. Now if Anandtech would pay attention to the FACTS they would have checked iZ3D's support. This company has outstanding support for their products. And the issue with the crosstalk is being constantly tweaked in several ways. Their drivers have improved vastly which has helped reduce the crosstalk and then the issue with the rotation of the polarize filter layer on the left lens has been corrected along with a tinting issue. With the new glasses the crosstalk has been reduced by at least 30% which is great. I have been playing the new Batman in 3D and all I can say is that it looks WONDERFUL! SO just because you did a rushed review and didn't get your facts straight, you had an unpleasant unpleasant experience doesn't mean that it's not worth it. I highly recommend this monitor to all of my friends. In fact I have shown my system off as a demo unit to all of my pc customers and they are blown away by it. So next time... come off with a stronger argument than the lame review you posted. And btw.. circular polarization is not the way to go if your wanting the best picture. Circular polarization actually cuts the vertical resolution in 1/2 WHICH SUCKS! Why would you want to take away some of the eye candy that makes some games that much better? Granted it reduces ghosting down to around 5-12% which is the performance that you'll receive from Nvidia's solution or the Zalman's monitor.. (WHICH btw is a circular polarization). I have used several solutions and have been following stereoscopic viewing for a rather long time (over 10 years). I used to use active shutter glasses back in the day with CRT monitors and I always found that the active solutions to give me eye strain after 20 minutes or so. I have also used active solutions on Samsung DLP tv's that are 3D ready. The iZ3D drivers with the Samsung DLP tv's and a pair of shutter glasses works extremely well and is far cheaper than buying the Nvidia solution. Online you can find the IR sync and two pairs of glasses for around 100 bucks, then throw in the iZ3D drivers (DLP mode 'free to ATI users') and your already exsiting 3D ready DLP tv and you will be surprised by the performance. Anyways.. hope this clears a few things up. Reply

Hyundai has 3D LCD monitors out as well that should be considered and reviewed here at Anandtech if possible. I despise the active glasses because they give me eye strain and fatigue after prolonged use (anything over an hour) I have used the Hyundai monitors and think they are probably a better alternative than these. They've been out for about a year now, so I'd love to see a more comprehensive review of 3D monitors. Reply

Does anyone have a link to a review of those Hyundai 3D Monitors? I did some searching but couldn't find a real hands on review.
I love the idea of 3D gaming and want to know what all my options are. Reply

I'd just like to say that even though the monitor, or iZ3D's solution "isn't there yet", the article itself was really good: well-written and explained. The people griping should understand that even though there is plenty to do before 3d displays are really ready for prime time, this was a good article about what's available at this point. I applaud companies for trying to bring out 3D solutions when they know the market will be tiny, but give the author some credit for writing a cogent article on an "almost there" product. Reply

The article was incomplete. It has nothing do to with the product. This article was rushed because the reviewer found enough negatives (in his mind) not to recommend it and didn't finish the review. To leave out 2D desktop performance on a display review is just sloppy.

I'm particularly irritated because I'm about to pull the trigger on the samsung 120hz monitor.

A 120Hz monitor has a potential benefit to other uses and isn't just for stereo 3D. It has a higher refresh rate potentially offering a smoother viewing experience to all applications 2D and 3D.

The iZ3D monitor has no further potential benefit to any other 60Hz LCD panel. Meaning any other 60Hz panel will be far superior when you consider cost. Even if it's a good 60Hz 22" monitor, it is not in any way shape or form going to be a $400 monitor unless you consider stereo 3D (with the glasses) a major benefit.

There was no reason to look at this monitor as anything other than a stereo viewing device. There is no reason to consider buying it except for it's stereo capabilities. Reply

I agree. I'm not interested in the stupid glasses. I just want a better performing monitor for gaming. Xbit reviewed the samsung 120Hz (nvidia capable) monitor and they raved about the monitor without the glasses. How does this stack up? Reply

did you read the article? its about a 3d display. a passively polarized 3d screen, its not going to knock you out with its 2d.

so if your not interested in the stupid glasses your missing the entire point.

xbit raved about the 120hz samsung(nvidia capable) monitor without the glasses. ok great, how about its viewing angles? its still a tn panel, they made no mention of how washed out it looks at any angle other than dead on. even the edges will start to look different on a 22" screen.

it boils down to price, if it was $200, then yea it would be a no brainer, only 50-75 bucks more than a 60hz one. but $400 for a tn panel monitor, no thanks.
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To be perfectly honest, the fact that the monitor falls so short for its intended purpose really means that looking at it's other qualities is not necessary -- it just isn't something we would recommend even if it were good as a standard 2D monitor.

As far as monitors go, it doesn't look bad, but we didn't do any in depth testing on color space or anything. Contrast and brightness were very good, but reflectivity was a huge problem, and it did have a problem refracting an overhead light into a rainbow ...
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It's a desktop display BEFORE it becomes a 3D gaming monitor. Your testing method should have reflected that. But, like a kid with new toy you began playing before diving into the settings. You don't understand the readers here do you?

I love it when people tell others that the information they themselves don't know isn't worth knowing. You sir are the epitome of the "interwebs". I'm quite disappointed to read such rubbish on anandtech. Reply

The only benefit to this monitor is it's additional hardware support for polarizing sub-pixels so that you can view them in 3D ... You pay a premium for this over other 22" monitors only for the 3D capability ... This is not a monitor you would buy as a 2D display or for gaming if you were not going to use the stereo option.

It would be irresponsible to suggest that this would be worth it for it's standard capabilities as a monitor. You can get a 22" monitor for $150. At the upper end you'd be hard pressed to spend more than $250 ... why would you ever spend $400 on a monitor that could not add anything beyond this in terms of 2D capability and whose major feature to justify the cost premium is not something we recommend? Reply

Also I would have expected a price range. Are we talking $400 or a grand here? I know the product isn't being sold yet, but sheesh, is this a super-luxury item or something a normal person could purchase (when the technology pans out)? Reply

I have to disagree with the article, but in my opinion flicker is much worse a problem than ghosting. Flicker on 60 Hz CRT displays is immediately visible and simply... disgusting. And nVidia's solution has that 60 Hz flicker. It even has ghosting too, as the LCD screen is unable to completely switch colors between frames, and leftovers from the previous frame remain on the current one, that is, move from one eye to the other. Until we can have 200 Hz screens (allowing a 3D shutter solution with 100 Hz flicker), I think passive polarization 3D is the only way to go, either with screens like the iz3d or with projectors like depthQ. Oh, and iz3d are working on new materials for their glasses, apparently reducing ghosting considerably. Was the test done with the old glasses or the new ones? Reply

I agree that 60Hz flicker in older monitors was a problem, but none of the people we've had test the 3D Vision noticed any flicker (including myself) ...

Yes, each eye is given 60 images a second, but because each eye sees something different (rather than the same frame as in CRTs) and because the 60 images per second are delivered at 120Hz to each eye (each eye is fully blanked for 1/120th of a second and given an image for 120th of a second) your brain composites the images from your eyes (halving the brightness, but giving the illusion of a higher refresh rate).

It is definitely not the same as a 60Hz display and it is not even the same as having a 60Hz display for each eye with different perspectives -- it is 120Hz to each eye but with half the frames being black.

Again, ghosting isn't due to the quality of the glasses as they really are capable of blanking pixels from one eye when need be. The issue is fundamental to the way they use partially aligned light to show different colors in both eyes from one pixel.

This test was done on whatever the latest iZ3D was able to send me and I'm unaware of whether these are newer or older than anything else they've shown off. Reply

This technology can be used to view 3D in many different ways, not just with that monitor.

You can buy a license to use it with front-projection, rear projection, any TV with shutter glass support.

nVidia does not own the patent on 3d 120hz glasses, they have just made hardware and software that will only work in one limited way, with their video cards and drivers.

Assuming the interface is opened, or an alternate transmitter is designed, the iZ3D folks can easily use the nVidia glasses, and any screen display tech they like.

Ironic isn't it, the way nVidia has pulled something down over your eyes (figures it would have batteries and a big green logo on it though).

Just in case you were further un-aware, there is a technology based on circular polarization, where there shouldn't be any ghosting. This is integrated into a Mitsubishi(??) DLP technology, all you need are passive glasses.

Notice the last cards to work with the older drivers were the G80 (on some leaked beta quadro drivers, and only in shutter glasses mode, with fairly bad support.)

The last properly supported cards were the 7 series, of which the 7900GTO/X 512MB are more expensive than any G92 card, and much much slower.

I hope that the nVidia way drops in price so I can afford it, but the mounting cost (Vista or higher, New synced 120hz monitor, $200 nVidia bundle, New nVidia card capable of playing said game) adds up to several hundred dollars I need to live on, if I had them. Reply

Thanks for the feedback ... I hope I can help clarify some things though.

I do mention that iZ3D has been making drivers that are capable of enabling stereoscopic viewing on other technology. This article is not about iZ3D's driver in general -- this article is about their monitor and associated technology only.

It is true that iZ3D (or anyone else including NVIDIA) could hack or make usable GeForce 3D Vision hardware for use on any graphics card or game. Currently that's not an option though.

The ghosting is not due to problems with linear polarization: iZ3D's solution can dispaly black in one eye and white in the other just fine. The problem is with the way certain things must be partially polarized so that both eyes see some different color at the same pixel. If iZ3D did the same thing with circular polarization (which I'm not even sure they can do this anywhere near as easily) then they would have the same problem.

I do know NVIDIA pulled support for alternative stereo displays in their GeForce drivers, and iZ3D's driver would be a good alternative for some of these other technologies. But that doesn't have to do with the monitor we were reviewing.

I do apologize for not listing the price of the iZ3D solution initially -- it's $400.

If someone needed to buy a similarly sized 120Hz monitor and 3D Vision it would cost $400 for the monitor and $200 for the 3D Vision package, so the iZ3D option is clearly cheaper for those who do not already own a 120Hz monitor (which would be most people). Reply

ps the mitsubishi dlp's arent passive circular polarized theyre meant to be used with shutters. they implement a checkerboard pattern as opposed to typical horizontal interlacing to overcome the bandwidth limitations inherent in hdmi.

the actual display refreshes at 120hz, with half of the image displayed alternating for each eye. there is a din3 output to sync to the glasses.

while not having first hand experience ive read that they are pretty much ghost free compared to the competition. they also work with both nvidia and iz3d drivers.

you guys should try to get a unit for testing purposes, i would like to see an objective review of one in 3d, they've been out for some time now and theres been little if any coverage by major news outlets. Reply

The technology we are NOT getting is integrated into the color wheel in the form of circular polarized color segments.

This form of DLP requires only passive circular polarized glasses (AKA RealD, I think the going theory is that theater conglomerates are using that as a pull to bring people to the movies, thus it is not available to consumers.)

Sorry Derek, I should have clarified:

"If someone needed to buy a similarly sized 120Hz monitor and 3D Vision it would cost $400 for the monitor and $200 for the 3D Vision package, so the iZ3D option is clearly cheaper for those who do not already own a 120Hz monitor (which would be most people)."

And Vista (or greater).

It is even cheaper if you factor in the requirement to pay up for a move to Vista, which iZ3D does not require you to do, it supports XP just fine.

All in all I am glad that iZ3D and nVidia are bringing this out, but I wish they had waited a bit until there were more 120hz LCD's, and brought a < $100 version, perhaps wired, that would work on other displays. Taking something that anyone with creativity and an interest could play with and then turning it into something only people with an extra $600 could use is soul-crushing. I applaud iZ3D for coming out with alternatives. (I look forward to experimenting with rear-projection, grab a free rear-projection TV locally, remove back, shine two polarized projectors at the rear, use iZ3D software to play in 3D. Alternatively you can use a silver screen and front projection.) Reply